Is there an easy to use CCK out there that a newbie can try and not get discouraged? I tested a market leader and my brain fried. Two hours and nothing to show for it. I need something with a form front-end to create an application (for our little neighborhood association).

Its not a duplicate. I'm asking about an easy to use CCK here.
– Kathy SDec 4 '14 at 17:21

4

The problem I've seen with CCK's, is that they try to be one of two products. Either they try to do it all, or they try to skeleton the output so you have just barely what you need. People who have little to no PHP experience tend to go for the overwhelming products, because they don't want to waste a lot of time trying to program the rest of their simple 2 view component. There are a lot of good examples in the answers/comments here, but take it all with a grain of salt. You're getting answers from people who probably know what they're doing.
– James ShaverDec 9 '14 at 0:05

I tend to use ChronoForms rather than a CCK but would not describe ChronoForms as easy for a beginner.

From a recent Joomla Beat podcast, I get the impression from Chad Windnagle that the simplest and most future proof CCK would be a plugin that doesn't interfere with the core code. By "future proof", I mean something that's easy to upgrade or migrate from one version of Joomla to another. From what I understand, some CCKs made Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 migrations very difficult.

Excellent suggestion - I've used it myself and it's very nice to rely on the core code, rather than 3rd party code, for maintaining it. Not so fun if you need that data in SQL statements, but for day to day stuff, outSTANDing.
– GDPDec 5 '14 at 0:59

Typically, you gotta do a chunk of set up to make a CCK usable on the client side, so you do need to have some development skills to get it going. Here's some stuff I can tell you:

I have not used Fabrik, yet, but I have heard nothing but good stuff, and it seems to be the simplest of the CCKs, though again, if you want crazy functionality, you need to be able to get into the code.
// **AMENDMENT ** I have since used Fabrik and found it to be nothing but an exercise in frustration. I do not recommend it unless you are using it strictly for tables and rows of data.

ContentBuilder - I have used this, and I am not a huge fan, but it is more toggles and switches orientated than it is development orientated, so it might be an option for you.

K2 - this is a huge component, with a ton of expandability, I've used it extensively. If you want to go straight out of the box, you'll be okay. As soon as you want to 'move this extra field over here' you need to get into the php and template overrides.

Sobipro - this is my current go-to for CCKs - It's not as intuitive as I'd like, for development, but if you're just flipping toggles and switches, you'll be okay. This one depends heavily on code if you want to customize the output.

I have tried K2, but had no real requirement to extend it. It's very easy to use out of the box.

I have tried SEBLOD for a highly customised app. I found it confusing, the language didn't make much sense, and I found the support lacking (you have the option to pay for further support). Given the delay in the support, and some of the glitches, I don't think I will use it on a commercial site again. They also miss deadlines for updates.

Fabrik is another highly complicated app, but you can do a lot with it.

Content Builder looks promising I will try that next. It looks as powerful as SEBLOD but integrates well with the core, allows content plugins, and seems to be named in a more user friendly way so you can guess where you need to be.

Easier CCKs which just add fields

DP Fields is going to be added to the core in the next minor update, and is a really good add on that uses the core. It allows you to add extra fields to the core (they appear within tabs in articles), but it gets quite basic if you want to really expand Joomla. It's great for beginners. I would say this is the easiest.

Fields Attach is similar, but I would recommend the above as it is due to become part of the core.

Overall, creating additional fields in Joomla is very easy. Displaying them is slightly harder and may be where you find a CCK to be a good use. If you just want to add additional fields to registration, you probably just want to extend.

I'm surprised that I haven't seen Form2Content CCK in any of the lists yet. A relative low learning curve and has good and simple front-end management options. Article templating using Smarty provides flexibility for "dynamic" effects like default image or text.

It supports extra fields and you can assign an article to many categories, strongly support SEO/SEF and the interface is much like com_content, so it's very easy to use if you familiar with core joomla content.

I tried lot of CCKs for Joomla. I used K2 for years but to create complex sites and functions it's not enough. My personal favorite and the only one what I can suggest is Cobalt 8. This CCK is more an application builder with endless possibilities. You can do almost everything but I think it's not for beginners. On the official forum you can get help from the community.